Episode Transcript
Qin En 00:00
In this special episode of Parents in Tech, I speak to David and Linh, husband and wife, co-founders of HackerNoon, the leading hacker, and developer publication on the internet, and parents to five-year old Norah, as well as a soon to be born son. HackerNoon is a technology publication that features more than 25,000 curious and insightful contributing writers.
They have raised $2.6 million from 1,300 shareholders, including Alexis Ohanian, Gary Tan, and Stephen Moon. Since launch, more than a hundred million people have visited HackerNoon to learn about technology. David and Linh co-founded HackerNoon in 2016, before welcoming Norah into the world shortly after.
We discuss what it's like to be parent entrepreneurs, navigating the family's relationship with technology and how they support each other through the ups and downs of parenting. This is a conversation I truly enjoyed and I hope you'll benefit from it too.
Qin En 01:23
Hey, David and Linh. Welcome to the Parents in Tech podcast. Really excited to have you guys on the show today and to begin with, could you tell us a bit more about your family?
Linh 01:21
Sure. So my name is Linh and this is my husband, David, also my partner in crime on all aspects of things, because we worked together running a company called HackerNoon.
Your question about family. We have a kid, she's five years old and her name is Norah. We have another one on the way. I am, well for those who are on audio, you probably don't see but I am 33 weeks and a few days pregnant. So 40 days left until we become a family of four.
Qin En 01:57
Congratulations on that. I'm so glad I caught you before you deliver so that you can have a good rest and I won't disturb you. But maybe David and Linh for those who haven't heard of HackerNoon.
Could you give perhaps a one-minute summary of what HackerNoon is all about?
David 02:26
Yeah, sure. HackerNoon is the place to publish. We're a technology publishing platform. We've published about 25,000 people in tech, all types of jobs, software development, CEOs, crypto enthusiasts, been around since 2016 and crypto stuff has been kind of growing the last five, six years, relative to the world.
And our site is a part of that and we employ editors and software developers. So we're mostly editing stories to make them better. Building distribution systems to get the stories more well read and building publishing software. Our main time is on the content management system that powers the site. But really, if we see little problems about how to solve publishing, we try and build something and then see if we can use that tool elsewhere.
So we've been at it about six years.
Qin En 03:13
Nice.
David 03:13
Nice to be here.
Qin En 03:14
Yeah. I've personally been reading HackerNoon for the past two or three years. Really loved the diversity of content that was there. And last year, I started to contribute. I think it's an amazing, incredible platform that really kind of puts the community and technology group at heart, but really when you said that you started the company in 2016. I did some simple Maths, and I realised that you welcome your daughter in the world, probably around the same time or a year after you started a company.
Linh 03:43
Very much so.
Qin En 03:44
Tell me, what was it like to have two babies? One in the literal sense and one in building a company.
David 03:51
We're very high growth people.
Linh 03:57
Yeah. Recently I just reminisced about having the first office in San Francisco. And now we are sitting here in a second official HQ of HackerNoon in downtown Edwards, Colorado. And I literally also refer to HackerNoon, as our other baby. It's been a very rewarding journey full of growth and full of ups and downs, but I wouldn't do it any other way.
Learning to parent while learning to lead a company, you just have to be very flexible. So I think the skill set you learn in parenting actually helps us also in management and vice versa. So yeah, I'm sure we dive deeper into that, but I think it's a great journey, a complimentary journey on both aspects.
Qin En 04:42
Okay, so first things first, was the timing intentional? Because I mean, it gets the "common sense" advice, common sense with huge air quotes, it's that you kind of try to do one thing at a time and make sure the company gets us on its feet first, before perhaps focusing on family. [What] did that look like for both of you?
David 05:02
Yeah, there were certainly some stressful times. The first year of the company I'm making the profits, which is 35 grand in a year. There's definitely stuff that has changed a lot since then. But for me, having Linh next to me the whole time, it's more likely to succeed, business and family. So, it's just that two talented people are more likely to get it done than one.
So I guess there's something that I feel good about. I don't know.
Linh 05:27
We didn't really decide the timeline for one of them. I mean, for Norah, it just kind of happened. And it's also around the time that HackerNoon started to gain traction. I mean, if you remember the crypto boom of 2017, that's when a lot of people learned about Bitcoin and everything. So it was also around the time that we got pregnant. We discussed with each other about family and about our focus and our appreciation for family values and wanting to have children at some point in the future as we were dating. But we definitely didn't anticipate that happening around the same time as HackerNoon was growing. We went with the flow and I was really glad that it worked out and we didn't drop one or the other.
David 06:16
Looking back, one other big thing changed. Whenever we found out we were having Norah, we wanted more space. We were in San Francisco. It's not ideal to raise a kid. So moving out into Colorado and fresh air and walking and having just some natural beauty part of the day and just space. And so that shift, I think. It was really helpful for my mind to be more focused and productive with the increased responsibilities that we were facing, you know, that you just went through with your 18 months old in the beginning, it's just like, oh my gosh, don't die. Like, let me care maybe enough, like every, like first falling over and stuff.
Linh 06:50
It's a blessing in disguise, I would say. Because ever since we moved to the mountains, the company actually accelerated in growth and we've been doubling revenue ever since like literally every single year for the past five years users have been very stable. We moved to our own platform and own 100% of our technology. So like all good things and you wouldn't think that adding a kid would help with that. But I think because we had to move to an area with more focus and more concentration, like just more time for our mental space to be cleared up.
David 07:28
In San Francisco and it was like every day after work, something was happening. There's like, oh, you can go here and you can go there. And it's just like, that is draining the amount of meetings I took just because, oh, you're at San Francisco too. Cool. Let's meet. Now it's like I'm picky, I'll just take the meetings I think are important. It makes me think, oh, if I could only do two meetings today, which of the important meetings should I be taking? And so, that question has been helpful. Just parenting has helped me just think a little better about longer term, like, sustainable priorities in my business.
Qin En 07:58
Absolutely. I realised that one thing that almost all parents seem to acquire over time. It's really the element of time management and ruthless prioritisation, because now you really do have something very meaningful and significant to tend to.
David 08:14
You say ruthless so delicately, it almost makes ruthless sound okay.
Qin En 08:21
But I really have to understand this right at that point with everything that's going on and with the rise of Hackernoon. How did both of you manage the boundaries between work and family? Because it can be so easy, it can be so consuming for both of you to pour yourself a hundred percent in. And I'm sure you did, but that also becomes a challenge.
Tell me a bit more about that.
Linh 08:45
Yeah, so like David can share his side of the story, but like, I would like to take a step back a little bit. So for my career, I have always been extremely driven, ambitious and didn't plan to have a child, quote, unquote, get in the way. I mean, I always wanted to have [a] family and children, but like I thought that I would set up and, you know, solidify my career first.
Now that all changed. Right? When we learned about the pregnancy in 2016, I was still the manager at a very high growth job and a very high growth company. And I thought that I could just manage it all right. Like, just go through the pregnancy. Don't tell anyone until I have to then get the maternity leave that I needed. Well that didn't happen. I was an international contractor even though in a very, a pretty good position in the company. And they were just like "No, we don't want to deal with pregnant international contractors. So yeah, it's a side of the story that I barely share, but I think it's important to include that in this part of the story. I decided, okay, now is the time. I think it's like a signal from the universe, for me to slow down a little bit and focus on what my body needed at the time and what my family needed at the time. Which is the baby. And I actually took about a year. Maybe more than that, off. Completely off work just to focus on growing this little being inside of me. And I think that that was really helpful for me to refocus on what I wanted as the next step of my career. So HackerNoon came about not because, you know, I've been aspiring to be like in the tech crypto software development space, wherever. Before I was in the education community NGO kind of space.
And like there's some intersection with tech, but most of it has got to do with education and community. So I was interested, but also not 100% familiar with that space. The only thing that kept me hooked onto the job is like, wow, it's the closest one available to me. You know, it was started by my husband.
And he wasn't the only employee at the time. He really needed help. So yeah, it became organically just logical for me to join at the time. And I think as I grew with a company and as HackerNoon grew, I learned to love that space more. Just channelling all of the skill sets and all of the passion I have for community management and marketing and just “people understanding people”. All combined together in the job really helped me get out of my just mother and Norah only phase. ‘Cause like that year was wonderful. You know, I was exclusively breastfeeding and really bonding with my daughter, but I really miss the part of me that was ambitious, driven career wise.
So it's a natural, organic, and I would say really fulfilling journey for me.
David 11:54
I would add our skills are pretty complimentary. I mean, I'm someone who expands, it's like expand versus exploit, you know, or expand into an area versus solidify, you know? So there's a lot of like whenever I'm just setting up a business, you know, in running a business and being on time and being operational and getting sales, getting deals closed, building up people.
These are skills that I needed help with, you know, just sometimes, you know, I'm just creating blindly on the internet and sometimes I'm just a little logistically lost.
Linh 12:31
He's the maximizer and I'm the optimizer in the company. Another example would be, if we were to. And a movie to watch, you know, in our daily lives, he would tend to discover something new and I would tend to go back to the library of what we've watched. So it translates into our preference for working. He always comes up with new ideas, throwing them to the wall all the time, whereas I'm always coming back to what we have done and trying to improve them slowly.
Qin En 12:54
Yeah. I love that balance. It's beautiful. But Linh, I got to dial back a bit, right? You are someone who is driven, ambitious. For you to take that one year gap off, to have the time for yourself for Norah. I think that's beautiful. I think more parents should do it, but tell us a bit more about that uncertainty, anxiety, or perhaps even FOMO. You might just be missing out. You might be interrupting a career trajectory. Were there [with] these concerns. And how did you go about dealing with them?
Linh 13:25
I mean, it was hard. I remember there were nights when I would just stay up with Norah, you know, how it is with, like, a newborn baby, very needy. So there'd be, like, times between feedings. I would kind of look into the greyness that is my future that I felt super scared about. I never had that kind of feeling at all in my eight years before that, leading up to my career, I always kind of, you know, graduated from a good school in Vietnam, went to international school, went to an Ivy league school in America. I always knew what the next step was and all of a sudden it came to a halt.
Almost with, with this motherhood journey. And for the first time I kind of couldn't see the next step. So that was definitely a little bit challenging. But I think that's what happens with optimistic people. You just have this blind optimism at the end of the day, that things are going to work out. Some people call it hope, some call it delusion. I don't know. But those moments kind of passed and I attributed it to hormones, like postpartum hormones as well. Like once I'm out of that fog, I just kind of somehow trust that things are gonna work out. And I mean, it's not like it was easy, the first year with HackerNoon, we had a two person team. We were an S-corp at the time. So what that means is, you know, you only get money to pay your bills if you make money. Literally we would get like a contract from a client, immediately pay our credit card. There was just no cushion.
I would say for the first two years, at least there was really a pipeline for HackerNoon to like personal life. It's very dry.
David 15:14
Even when we made it change to like a more grown-up business and we did equity crowdfunding. Now we have 1200 people depending on us, you know, and it raised the stakes of, oh, you're actually upping the stakes and you're trying to build a more ambitious business now. And so that was a good bit of pressure. I'm thrilled to be profitable again. That's like a whole weight off me. It was like two years not being profitable, it was just eating me up inside. And so at that level, I had a little bit of stress added to push through to get there. But now I feel kind of more calm. I feel like every year the business has been more stable in terms of how much risk you're putting up on your family.
‘Cause it's easier just to have a set job set amount goes up each month, it goes up each year in tech. But as your own business, you take on a lot more risk. But I just don't think about the risk of not doing parenthood, it doesn't hurt your career. It's like risk would be there no matter what that's who I am as a person and not being profitable and saying this is a good business, would eat me up. It's just a philosophically wrong thing to be doing. I'm really thrilled to be where I'm at.
Qin En 16:20
Absolutely. I think it's an incredible growth story. But David, for you, at the point when Linh was taking a break, HackerNoon was still relatively at its infancy. Tell me, how did you deal with all that stress and that pressure, which of course could be a good thing, but at the same time and on an individual level with the new responsibilities of fatherhood as a founder. I'm sure there's a lot that went through your mind. What were some of the strategies, the coping mechanisms that worked well for you?
David 16:50
Routine is really important and growing your routine and trusting it. When work happens it is great to know it and to plan it and just say, it's okay, I'm taking this half day Tuesday, because I'm going to do this. It's better to be off with my family now. And I'll make up [for] that time later.
So in [my] routine of exercise, I'm playing basketball once a week in the morning. And that keeps just like the routine of my body. [Going] to a place, [doing] a routine feels young again. You got to carve time out as a parent. Do something on your own, so that I can get lost in everything. So balancing our abilities to get those moments in our routine has been really helpful.
Linh 17:28
Yeah. I remember very distinctly, the month. So Norah turned one month old and David sat me down on the bed and was like "Linh, I think it's time. I really need to get out of the house to have focused work".
And I was hurt-
David 17:43
Tough conversation with a colleague-
Linh 17:45
Pregnancy hormones. And I was like, "What? You're going to abandon me in this house”? To look back, it was extremely important that he had that freedom and that time just carved out exclusively for work and, you know it's hard enough for just one of us to be drowned and our new found identity as a parent.
Like if both of us just kind of ignore all of the financial aspects of the business and don't grow the business, then I don't think we would have HackerNoon today. So I'm glad that he was able to do that while being an extremely involved parent, he was never not part of anything when it comes to Norah, that's something that David has never compromised, even in the hardest of times of HackerNoon.
And that way, I'm extremely thankful to have such a partner in a husband.
Qin En 18:38
Yeah. Now, in terms of supporting each other, can each of you share what your partner did that you really appreciated over the past five years of parenthood?
Linh 18:54
I never saw David interact with children when we were dating, because you in your twenties, you just kind of want to enjoy city life and like travelling to Italy and whatever, but seeing him so natural with a newborn Then a toddler and now a kid and a girl that like now he told with this one, we gonna have a boy. And he's kind of petrified again of, like, not knowing.
David 19:21
Before it happened. I was like, I really wanted a boy before as a parent. ‘Cause I was like, I'll be able to relate to him immediately. And now five years have passed, I really wish it was another girl. It was my first thought because now I know that, I know what it's like to be a girl just at one through five. Now I've seen how much she's just evolved. And you know, she does half my genes, so there's something in there of like, why would you even think that way? Oh, I get it. Like, I think that way.
Linh 19:48
To answer your question about what I appreciate. So he rose to the occasion definitely like a total girl dad. He is this over-protective parent among the two of us, for sure. Like I'm more relaxed and he is definitely more cautious. And he really emphasised on like intellect early on the idea that a child is never too young to discuss with you about whatever topic. He talked about the theory of relativity and what the physics thing that you did with Norah.
David 20:22
Mass equals force times acceleration.
Linh 20:25
Yes. With Norah I like to play this merit game, right. Like when she would not stop copying you. So David's like, sweet I'm gonna use this to my advantage and instil in you this equation. So he definitely does like little tricks like that, for sure. So that's only what I appreciate about him and he makes parenting very light. Not like, oh, you have to be like the authority, you know, whatever that means. It's like growing up in an Asian household, like you see the kind of parent that like Asian people like to model after. And it's refreshing to see someone who's thinking of being a parent as like a more fun responsibility, rather than a burden so to speak. So, yeah, I appreciate that about him a lot.
David 21:15
And I appreciate putting Norah to sleep. This is just a definable area where she's just so much better. It's on a different level of I don't know. It's like the ultimate comfort of being able to fall asleep, let's dream and start a new day. I mean, with me, she just keeps playing.
Qin En 21:35
So dad is fun and mom is calming, soothing. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. You know there's clearly, so much love and joy that both of you have, but I, I mean, I still want to talk about the realities of parenting and also, you know, bringing different parenting styles into a family.
So could you share, perhaps was one difference that both of you realised that you had differences in, in terms of parenting styles and how did you work to create that alignment?
Linh 22:11
One thing I can immediately think of is like, I grew up in a household that values tidiness and cleanliness and no mess. Part of it is like personality, as well. Like I'm always like cleaning up like the smallest stain or whatever. And David's always of the mindset "a little bit of mess is fine". Definitely that's one difference, but I don't think it's that important, you know, like it's just like on the largest scale of things. Mess or no mess, we both agree on some fundamentals. Like we agree that it's important for her to create rather than consume, you know, I'm sure you're going to ask about a tech or in a little bit later, but values like that, like fundamentals we both agree on, but there's definitely some minor differences. And just the fact that I'm from Vietnam and he's American. Definitely there's a lot of cultural differences. Like one compromise that I definitely had to make was the language thing. I'm here by myself. I mean, there's like all five Vietnamese people in this small ski town in the middle of nowhere in Colorado. So in order for me to teach her to be fully bilingual, I would have to put on my armour. It's like a full-time job to basically speak to her just in Vietnamese and also for David to understand.
For that battle I kind of chose just the easy way for myself. Some would say probably a little lazy, but you know, being a business woman, running a company, as well as having Norah not having co Vietnamese relatives around, I chose to raise her in English. So that it's not so much of a difference. It's something we have to overcome, you know, a bilingual, bicultural family.
David 23:59
I think she'll learn Vietnamese before I do. She's already doing it faster. I'm like the numbers and the greetings and like trying to, well, we'll see.
Linh 24:07
Duolingo.
David 24:10
Norah's been to Vietnam one time.
Linh 24:10
Just that one time because of COVID otherwise we'd go back sooner.
David 24:16
Yeah. COVID has been tough. We were going back and forth a lot.
Linh 24:20
Yeah, we try to make it yearly and then COVID happened, so yeah.
Qin En 24:24
Makes sense. That's challenging. Now, David, how about for you? Do you remember any difference that you guys had to align on in terms of parenting styles?
David 24:34
I would say the big one of those ones for me is just being on time. So like when daycare and school starts at a certain time, I was just raised at like, on-time means you're there. Like, whatever time it is said is the moment you're there.
And Linh is much more like it's a range, just [a] little, like, you know, everything has to be happening right around the house and everything's moving forward. One thing new parents should definitely plan for that I forgot about that this is reminding me of is just the time from the moment you decide to leave till the moment you can leave has changed dramatically. It's monumentally different [from] what it was before there was a kid.
Linh 25:11
So [are] your kids still, like, in diapers?
Qin En 25:13
Yes. She is. That's why I one hundred percent agree.
Linh 25:17
That added like at least five minutes to the prep time. And once they're older, you would think it is shorter, but no, like they have [played] and I don't know [what they] need. Like if she goes to ballet, she needs like five items off of a thing, and a snack.
There's always gotta be a snack.
David 25:38
Everything. And then for me it just became a little bit chill. I know I care about being on time more. I know this group, out of the people we're going to see, of the people in this group. I'm the one who cares the most about being on time. So I just need to take a deep breath and be like, this is okay.
Maybe that'll just happen a little later and that's fine. It's tough. That's something I'm working on pretty much every day and probably will be every day, the rest of my life is like just some sort of fear of whether I'm on time or not. And I have to do, you know, more to be on time, whatever that even means.
Qin En 26:18
It's so relatable. Right. I recently just went on my first family vacation after a long time due to COVID also. And it's like, huh, my 18 month's old bag. It's like twice the size of mine, right. Because you need diapers, some milk, and everything. So completely relatable to that. And I guess shifting gears also to the tech element. Both of you tech company leaders, tech founders, what's the relationship between technology that you want to cultivate with your daughter? And specifically, perhaps we can start with screen time, right?
Linh 26:50
Yeah. So we recently went to Disney World, right? And what shocked me the most about the level of tech consumption in kids these days is just how much there is. Like we would be sitting in a restaurant for two hours surrounded by three or four families with kids as young as two years, maybe younger. I don't know. And like, as old as eight or 15 and all of them, like, I would say 8 out of 10 families would just put kids in the dinner with some kind of device. I don't want to cast judgement on moms and dads who need some kind of temporary relief, you know, from whatever duties they're doing in the day. But this is like vacation we're talking about, it's not like you're going there to work. Like you're going to this Disney World, spending thousands of dollars to relax. And what do you do? You put your kids during an important family dinner for two hours on a device. So I think that kind of screen time for us would be stepping on the line. Like the line for us is no devices during family mealtimes and no devices during the day.
David 28:05
The big rule installed in the house was no TV until it's dark. So it has to be dark outside for you to turn on the big screen. We have one big screen, not in the main room of our house and [it] has no TV. So we eliminate that part. [Somehow] we like family movie nights. I still love watching movies.
Linh 28:25
She can comprehend things now that was surely at 18 months. You know, your child can kind of comprehend something. Yeah.
Qin En 28:31
Yes. She's starting to like screens, which is worrying me that I am asking.
Linh 28:36
Well, if you can't stop that. So that's the other equation. So if you can't stop the exposure, because they're going to hang out with their friends and they're going to see you on the device. Then they're going to have questions about why they can't. So the other rule for us is create and not consume. So if you are on the device you better be painting via what's that one Procreate, or you better be learning some phonetics from Khan academy, or you better put in some emojis. That's also creating she has figured out because you know, our screen is locked, but she can like scroll down to get to the keyboard. And then, so now I have like a running log of Norah's emojis on my phone because I thought it perfectly captures what goes through a four or five-year olds mind. Tons of mermaids, and flowers, and what have you.
So yeah, the line for us is like, sure, we can't control whether or not you know how to use the screen because you're going to know how to use the screen, you know, whether or not we want them to or not. But you're going to use this screen for something to enrich your mind and something so that you don't just mindlessly scroll. At least we try.
Qin En 29:52
I would imagine it's such a constant battle, but I'm glad that you already have developed this very healthy perspective of technology, really embracing it, but also kind of setting clear boundaries. So sort of, if I flip the question, ask for both of you. So plugged into technology. Do you use any technology to help with the parenting journey with family or is it mostly, still good without?
David 30:17
I mean, if I would say the core technologies to our parenting, I mean, messenger's there. Because it's a group chat with all [of] Linh's family. My side of the family.
Linh 30:26
A camera having her take pictures.
David 30:31
Oh yeah. So we got her a Polaroid recently. This is a great thing to buy for a three to five year old [kid].
They would be just old enough to understand the cost of one and the sense of like, Hey, we only have so many of these. The first big rule I had for the teacher, once she got the camera was [to] take pictures of people, because the first, like 10 she took with the Polaroid, she was like taking – at first it was her doll and then her hairbrush.
And it was like maybe, but this is a Polaroid. That became kind of a core technology for us.
Linh 31:00
And like I said, some apps on the iPad that we allow her to have are the Math game, Khan academy, Procreate.
David 31:08
Procreate with the pen is awesome because they're just getting in this age, they're getting used to the pen and now she knows like different, she's learning early skills of zoom in, zoom out, change your brush, you know, move around like that those ones are really good for, I think your brain.
David 31:22
Has your daughter started to walk yet at 18 months?
Qin En 31:25
Yes. In fact, she's just, she's starting to climb things which is starting to kind of make us very worried. And she finally has reached the height where she can grab on the door and open the door.
Now I, so sometimes when I'm taking meetings, I actually lock the door just to make sure that she doesn't puddle in and climb on the chair while I contend [with] her. So, yeah, but it is such a fun and rewarding piece. So maybe on that note, David, I'm going to ask you, what is the best part about being a dad?
David 31:55
I don't know if this is the best, but one of the greatest things about it is just really firmly definitively knowing for the first time, you're not the most important person in the universe. There's always a little piece of you that may believe it. And this is the first piece of definitive evidence that it can not be true. So I think that helped my brain a lot. You know, if I had lived all of life and not got that, I would have lived a lesser life. So I think it's. Yeah, it's the greatest thing I've ever done is have, have my daughter Norah.
Qin En 32:27
It truly is and maybe in terms of that. And now of course, when Norah is expecting, tell me a bit more about the plan for the number of children and what were conversations around that look like.
David 32:41
I think we're considering between 8 and 13.
Qin En 32:44
A full soccer team.
Linh 34:47
Yeah. I think with our financial status and our wealth at this point, two is a great kind of like number. We're both from a family of four, you know, I have a brother, he has a sister. The dynamic is also older sister, younger brother. So that's kind of something we both used to, so that feels natural for us. But I also want to say, never say never. Right. ‘Cause you know, we, we would like to think that we've pretty good parents.. You know, we'd raised a pretty adorable and smart and kind child. So the idea of bringing more like that into the world, it's pretty cool. But, you know, I would also be completely happy with two.
David 35:01
So my mind is on a healthy birth, that's what's on my mind right now.
Qin En 33:35
So Linh, second time. Is it easier? Is it tougher? Tell me a bit more about the journey over the past, what six, seven months as you go through this while also of course, having to juggle all the other responsibilities as a tech leader, as a mum.
Linh 33:55
I would say the second time around you're more relaxed for sure.
You know, which is what happens with most things in life. Once you do it, once you're less kind of worried about the unknowns, because it has become known to you. So definitely kind of more armed with more knowledge that whatever that's going on with my body or my baby, it's probably gonna turn out fine. So I have that peace of mind at the same time, I mean, every pregnancy is different.
Last time it triggered this condition called hypothyroidism or graves' disease for me, which means you know, high heart rate, lots of hormonal ups and downs, weight loss and stuff. And this time it's the opposite, which is gestational diabetes that you can't really control because it's also a hormonal thing, but you can attempt to control it with your diet. So yeah, every pregnancy is different. I would say if you're a woman, a pregnant woman, soon to be pregnant, or [have] been pregnant women, like props to you, it's hard. It's something really incredible that your body is capable of. You know, either has gone through or is going through. I think every, every mother is a superhero.
And yeah, I will give props to myself for going through this as we speak. I'm doing these blood tests. I've been pricking my fingers for a couple of weeks now. And it has an error that means not enough blood. So I have to poke my finger again, it's like making my fingers bruise and I keep bleeding all the time.
But I think apart from that, it all comes from your brain, you know, from your mind. So if you are relaxed about it, if you feel at peace with yourself and you don't stress out over it, kind of a trivial thing. Like it will translate into just like a calmer, healthier pregnancy as well. And I think work has been amazing because I have this purpose and this focus that I really need to get the company and the team in a good shape before I take a couple of weeks off or a couple of months off for maternity leave. And it gives me kind of like a lot of energy actually, to focus on that. What if I deliver early, right? ‘Cause you can like, I'm at 33 weeks at any point now you can deliver and it likely would turn out fine for you and the baby. What state do I want to leave the team and the company at? So I think about that a lot, and I think it has helped.
David 36:25
Speaking of how different pregnancies can be. The last time we were pregnant, we were walking from north beach to pals, to market street in San Francisco. So you go up the hill and down the hill, basically Lynn was walking with me every day. The first thing she had to do after both walks was nap. So it is a 30 minute walk up, then a nap in the office, then 30 minutes back, when we get there, nap. And now it's like this pregnancy. Yeah, she's sleeping more than she was when she wasn't pregnant. But the whole energy is much higher on a day-to-day basis right now with this level of focus.
So who knows pregnancy is all just a crap shoot. It just happens and do your best, hopefully make it to the other side.
Linh 37:08
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So David, two questions and you have to answer both. So what are you looking forward to the most and what are you looking forward to least?
David 37:20
In the world?
Qin En 37:23
With that in pending arrival of the second one?
David 37:26
I've forgotten a lot of what I did before. So there's some level of the fear of making my own mistakes again in terms of the new baby.
Linh 37:35
Yeah, it's been five years.
David 37:36
Yeah. So, you know, because I know I did it, I got to this point but there's not an exact knowledge of like, even the techniques around all the diapers, how to wrap and throw before, you know, so you don't get the poop and you get it right in the sealed thing. So I'm worried about that. I mean, I'm looking forward to just seeing a new personality. That's like seeing the kids' personalities develop and like, you know, some stuff stays the same through the years. And some of all the phrase Norah has been using lately is just, she always goes, "Just a sec". For what? "Just a sec".
And then she chills then does something like, oh, that's really, you know, cute and you chose it. Yeah, just seeing a new personality in the world is what I'm most looking forward to. ‘Cause you don't, you don't know what the kid will be at all. It's just genes that come in and there'll be bits you'll recognize from each of us, but it's a whole new thing. So that's what's really exciting about it.
Linh 38:27
Yeah I think the biggest parenting misconception is like the parents are in control of what the kid will be. Like, what no! You give birth to this person and you give some of your DNA to this person, but they are a whole person, they need time to develop, but they have their own predisposition that is completely theirs. The example I like to go to is Norah's best friend's twins. As the one in Quora, they were born literally like seven minutes apart and they are completely different persons, even though they're twins. And they're raised by the same parents under the same conditions all the time and go to the same school, hang out with the same kind of friends, and yet they're still completely different.
So the idea that you can just mould kids into whatever you want. It's not going to happen.
Qin En 39:16
The fact that they can take their own shape, and character and ways that you never expect. I think that's also one of the things that makes parenting interesting. So speaking of that, have you received any interesting parenting advice from the HackerNoon community that you have?
Linh 39:32
The HackerNoon community. So recently we had one of our employees become a parent and then we have another employee, a little bit older, who is a parent to two kids that are slightly older than Norah. And they approach parenting very calmly. And like that gives us calm, you know? Yeah, Richard, this week alone is home with John, his five-year-old son, I believe, or six year old. And John, would cameo in any zoom meeting because, you know, Richard is alone at home with him.
And he's totally chill about that. And we're also chill about that. It's also like this environment we want to foster within our very parents friendly company is that, you know, you have duties as a parent, and there's no shame about that. If you need to have your kid hang around during a zoom meeting. So be it. You know, maybe they'll learn something about CMS, whatever. But yeah, they'll learn the work ethics from you. They'll like to pick up things even as young as five-year-olds. So yeah. So Richard has given me a lot of confidence. Yeah, sure. If he can do that with two kids, because he has an older kid as well. So can we.
David 40:45
One of them is directly from HackerNoon, I remember. Whenever the HackerNoon writer, Daniel Jeffries. I was talking to him before this was happening. So before Norah was born, there's some uncertainty if the business was going to survive and you know, I, I said, just, I said something to him, like, and you know, this kid's on the way. And he's like, "Look dude, everyone has kids". And he was not being like, I thought for a second it stung, you know, like all my troubles are so much, why don't you acknowledge them? But you know, as you take a step back, it's like, yeah, It's not going to change your outcome in what life will be. It will make you have a more fulfilling life if you have kids. And it'll change your priorities, but you're going to be, you know, who you are and you're responsible for your things. And so if you do the job or not, it doesn't matter if you're a parent or if you're not. Like it matters if you do the thing. So that's yeah, that's been useful to learn.
And do the people around me kind of operate in the same manner? That's I think that's, there's some really just appreciation for the team we have now of just putting their job and giving us a lot of their time, and their energy, and their effort. And doing it enough that they're good enough at it that the business can work. It's good to build a team together.
Qin En 41:52
Absolutely. This has been such a rich and colourful conversation. And to wrap things up, if I can ask both of you, David and Linh, what is one lesson that you have learned as a Parent in Tech, what would that be?
Linh 42:05
One lesson. Having a kid, and about to be multiple kids really puts perspective on what kind of legacy you want to put forth in the world.
You know, ‘cause like it's not just about your business and about you anymore. It's also about like, what if you leave this earth early? Like what are you leaving your kids with? Are they going to be proud of it? Are they going to be ashamed of it? Are they going to be neutral? So we really think about the kind of world we want to leave Norah with and soon to be this, this baby boy as well. Yeah, you just become gentler, and kinder with your approach to the world I feel like because you know that this is something that you as well want for your child. And so I think that way it has been extremely positive to have a kid in the back of your mind when you build a business. Before, if we only [thought] for ourselves, we might have been a little bit more ruthless or, you know, Less futuristic or forward looking. And now we have to think more and more deeply about the kind of impacts that we want to leave.
So I would say and it's not specific to a parent and tech, I would just say parent in general, who does something in the world in terms of the tech angle? Yeah, like I said, just because we work in tech doesn't mean that we think tech is the end all be all solution for things. Like we have to use it just like most things in moderation and understand the pros and the cons. And so far, I think we've been okay with limiting the dark side of tech. Like us, we are aware that we can't do that forever, but so far it has been good.
What about you?
David 43:45
For parents in tech? I would think that There's a lot of options out there for who you work for, you know, yourself or another company. And what that company does. I think tech workers are very, very in demand and I think to be a good parent, you should be the master of your schedule.
And if you can't get that from the business you're at, you should create a business and do that. So, like, I, I think there is an element of like, you choose your time, if I only want to do this many meetings and I need six hours of quiet work and two hours of meetings, and that's what my day looks like, and that eight hours may be spread out in a window, three hours before the kid wakes up and maybe spread out late in the day, my schedule may break. I may be in a different timezone.
So it's like making sure, you know, you align work with how you want to spend your time, because there's a lot of times where I knew if I worked for somebody else, I couldn't bend the schedule this way. So, be ruthless about it and it'd be ruthless for yourself.
I mean, you're in, if you're making 250 at Amazon first, you can make a hundred for yourself. Isn't that a, you know, so it's, you're the upside is, you know, you could make a million for yourself, or 10 million. So like I would say it's not the risk, if you're in tech, there's just enough ways to make money that you should be a little more lenient to kind of bet on yourself and put your families schedule first.
Qin En 44:56
I think that's golden? That money you can always make more of, but time we are all given the same amount of time. And I feel like ultimately our children will remember us, not for the wealth that we relieve that hopefully not, but truly for the time that we spent with them.
This is really, really incredible. David and Linh, if some of our parents were listening to this, I'm sure many of them will be inspired and will want to connect with you. How can we best do so?
Linh 45:24
Yeah, so I'm everywhere as Linh Dao Smooke.
David 45:28
Smooke, it's like smoke with an extra O.
Linh 45:30
Two last names. Because Dao is my maiden name. My first name is L - I - N - H. Yeah, pretty much everywhere. I also have linhdaosmooke.com with thoughts, actually a lot about parenting, you know, it's like my, the intersection of my life as a business woman and as a parent. So yeah.
David 45:48
Just David HackerNoon. Just put that into Google.
Linh 45:52
Yes. We would do that.
David 45:44
Yup you'll find me. Is that a good backup? No.
Linh 45:48
Yeah. Google was invented a few years ago.
Qin En 46:04
Wow, David, thank you so much for taking time off for joining me on the Parents in Tech show. This has really just been such an incredible conversation.
I really appreciate the time and the candidness that both of you have. Thank you so much.
Linh 46:16
Thank you. Likewise.
David 46:19
Thanks for having us.
Qin En 46:25
Thanks for listening to the Parents in Tech Podcast with me, your host, Qin En. We hope you were inspired on how to raise kids and build companies. To catch up on earlier episodes or stay updated with upcoming ones, head over to www.parents.fm to join our community of parents in tech.
There, you can also drop me a question, idea, feedback or suggestion. Once again, the website it's www.parents.fm.
That's all for this episode, folks. See you next time!
